Everybody I’ve ever known is burning in hell.
I’m constantly floored by the sheer volume of high quality music releasing each week, and 2024 is showing us that it won’t be an exception. Release inboxes become like triage as we choose how to spend our precious time. Sometimes incredible works slip by and need emergency treatment; this is one such case. Sympathy Pain are a little known group out of Salt Lake City that have coined the genre “emotive drone”, a tag so good that I’m mad I didn’t think of it first. They’re crewed by Skyler Hitchcox and Casey Hansen (of Gaza and Cult Leader), and their first few releases were pure reverb-soaked guitar paradise. New members Nora Price and Chaz Prymek joined the project at the close of 2023, which now turns the project into something closer to a “band”. Since before becoming a four piece, they’ve been on the road with Rile and Shelter Red, as well as shows with Midwife who has become a direct collaborator. They return this year with Swan Dive, their most significant release yet.
As with all atmospheric rock, much of Swan Dive’s greatness is within its delicate and ephemeral soundscapes, a feature I can’t communicate to you except through poetic statements. However, I’m struck by the very tangible, deliberate decisions made throughout Swan Dive that elevate it beyond my expectations for modern ‘post rock’. Real magic can be found in the blurred lines between each song, passage, and drone. Musical ideas are sublimely mixed, be they little melodies, unison swells, hushed samples, or incidental noise. Each sound cooperates to spread the limelight evenly, such that no one idea dominates. The production (tracked by Wes Johnson of Archive Recordings and mixed by Ben Young) is a huge part of this success, but the composition is deliberate and careful as well. The collaging of sound, although thick and engulfing at times, does not detract from the impression of a live band somewhere within it. There’s a sense that these tracks could not be written down or gridded, but they can be performed, reliably and heart-wrenchingly.
Opener “Ellipse” crackles its way into life with three guitar lines. It builds up straightforwardly like a looper-based piece, eventually allowing intricate drums to join. It closes on a choir breathing out, as the guitars feedback with precision. It’s simple yet stunning, and “Ellipse” only hints at the beauty that is unfolding. We’re also introduced to the album’s between-track transitions – Swan Dive is built around these transitions from the ground up. “Swell” is a pure drone excursion, and the most direct continuation of their previous work (as they largely did not use acoustic drums up to this point). It’s a bank of blissful noise, hovering around the critical point where an amplifier turns from gentle to distortion. For new listeners to Sympathy Pain, placing “Swell” as the second track establishes such ambient moments as part of the centrepiece. It’s enigmatic, to the point of avoiding any discernable chord sequence, leaving us with no idea where it will lead, only that dark clouds are forming.
What does follow “Swell” is the title track “Swan Dive”, and its companion “Falling Through”, the most intense pieces on the record. They focus on heavy passages that repeat longer than you’d first guess, as if the band are of one shared mind, carefully determining when each melody has articulated its point. Unlike the often criticised crescendos of old, they are not driven by just one riff, or even by two or three. They sort of swell and envelop you, like some fog or rainstorm, their residency self-determined. When they die out, their absence could be fate, or coincidence.
As you can see, I can’t really explain it, but “Swan Dive” and “Falling Through” are masterpieces. “Swan Dive” keeps sweeping guitar as its bedrock, pedalling the same two notes like a rumbling storm cloud. The ‘lead’ spot are taken by xylophone and violin, textures really say ‘post rock’ the most endearing way. The track’s very gradual rise demonstrates uncommon patience, particularly in the drums which hold ever steady. Eventually the clouds do split to unleash extreme distortion, and “Falling Through” takes over with a split second’s notice. Gathering itself with a short interlude on distorted keys, it answers the downtrodden mood established on “Swan Dive” with a more hopeful guitar melody. Even so, it’s soaked in this gutwrenching resignation, as some sort of human-like wail backs the riff, trapped in the distortion. A dynamic pause takes the guitars down to fully establish the track’s themes. The heaviness returns for the final two minutes as all the themes become entwined; it’s a passage that has brought me to tears, and will do so again. The closing guitar duet is there to just rub it in.
The second side of the record (“Wynn Bruce” through to “Heaven + Hell”) is defined by being the aftermath of these pieces, and wisely don’t try to build to the same heights. “Wynn Bruce” pulls us out of the emotional hole of “Falling Through” in the droniest fashion. You’ll hear sampled crickets, piano merging with guitar, more strings, and cycling chords on short loops. “Six Grandfathers” is the most unusually written track, formed of short passages as if the cutting room floor swept itself into coherence. It’s all the better for it as the short loop that survived “Wynn Bruce” is carried over in a natural transition. The loop stutters uncertainly and transforms itself into a micro-heavy section, snuffing itself out as soon as it began. As if lied to, the drums try to play it out casually, but themselves become ensnared in reverb and delay, becoming swallowed by the rising drone.
“Heaven + Hell” introduces Midwife (Madeline Johnson) on vocals to seal the record. Over tender acoustic plucks, the mood is dejected: “Everybody I’ve ever known is burning in hell”. It’s the perfect collaboration, and hopefully brings some deserved interest to the record from the wider slowcore community. It would have been easy to reiterate the dramatic heights achieved earlier in the record, but “Heaven + Hell” is understated and resigned, even as distortion creaks in for its close. Instead, the only closure comes from frigid xylophone, deconstructed drums, and tender guitars.
Each listen to Swan Dive leaves me marvelling at how simply unresolved it feels. It would be so easy for the group to sneak in a chord or two that collapsed the tension, but it simply builds over the record, leaving me with a blissful ache. If anything can be pinpointed, it’s how the guitar writing plays with minimalism, and the careful selection of passages that hang like clouds, rejecting moments that might take you back to solid ground. Bell Witch and Tarentel are the few artists I can name that also find this magical spot. If the rest of the post rock world tells fairy tales, this is a tragedy. If the beauty of Sympathy Pain’s latest album slips most people’s notice, I doubt that I’m in the wrong.
9/10
Swan Dive released on the 12th January through The Ghost Is Clear records (digital/CD).